Ton Scherpenzeel

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Ready, readier, readiest

After a few blogs about the past, I think it’s time to have an update about the here and now (and as it happens, over there and later as well). Let me begin with the most actual news: our new live album KAYAKoustic has just been finished.

What do you mean, finished? Wasn't it ready last month? Played and recorded live? I can hear someone asking.

Yes, that’s right, but that doesn’t mean a live album is finished right after the gig. Just like at the venue, where a mixing engineer takes care of the best possible balance between the instruments and the vocals, this has to be done in the studio with the recorded audio. And while you’re doing that, of course, you hear things you didn’t know had happened during that show, or vice versa — which means you take the opportunity to correct some technical or musical errors.

Right! Fake! I knew it! I can see someone's pointing a rebuking finger at me.

Let me enlighten you: there is — as far as I know anyway — not a single live album by any artist that hasn’t been ‘helped’ afterwards. Listening to a live album is not the same as being at a live concert; the ambiance, the presence of the band and let’s not forget that those musical mistakes and technical irregularities that occur and make a concert unique, are lacking or could even be a nuisance while listening to a CD. Anyway, we only had one and a half concert to pick the best ‘takes’ from: because of a fatal computer problem (it’s hard to imagine a world without it) the first recorded concert (in Hoogezand) was for the largest part unusable.

But we corrected as little as possible. That’s audible: it’s in no way perfect, you’re hearing real living people at work, and as a matter of fact, the concerts simply weren’t perfect, technically speaking, that is. But they were unique, inspiring, or energetic, or they had a great vibe. And that’s what we wanted to maintain. Most of the cut and paste work has been dedicated to the spaces in between the songs. We have minimalized the announcements —all very nice when you’re there, but before you know it you’ve lost ten minutes with spoken information that only takes up space that could otherwise be used for music — still our core business. We also cut out the time lost with re-tuning and picking up instruments —all in all, we were able to add four songs from the second ‘electrical’ set to the whole first, ‘acoustical’ one (the essence of this album): ‘Royal Bed Bouncer’, ‘When Hearts Grow Cold’, ‘Act of Despair’ and ‘Chance for a Lifetime’. The other songs that haven’t made it to the album, ‘Merlin’ or ‘Starlight Dancer’ will be released or offered in due time. The next months the CD will be for sale mainly through our webshop, and of course during the coming tour at the merch stand.

These weeks we have also been working on the new studio album, which is planned for release in November/December. We have now recorded like twelve basic tracks (drums and bass). Most of the other recordings will be done after the summer (when the lyrics have been finished; they always end up last). It still seems a long time now, but it’ll be autumn before we know it. The first shows have already been confirmed, and will be announced on this site shortly.

The album title has been known for some time now, which is a-typical for Kayak: album titles are usually the last thing we think of. As it happens, theaters want to publish their programs and need a title for your show — hence our decision to have a title even before the first recordings have been done. The album will be called Coming Up For Air, and that has nothing to do with a book of the same name by George Orwell, something a fan pointed out. I did not even know of the book’s extistance. To us, it’s just a title of one of the songs. The album has no concept, no thread, there will be about 14 new songs (we still have to make a definite choice) which will equally feature Edward and Cindy on lead vocals, although, of course, Rob will have his share of that, too. Curious? So are we. It’s a thing that, once it’s put into motion, you’ll never know exactly where it’ll end up. We’ll do our best to make it something special, and take the opportunity to celebrate our 35th anniversary (36th, to be precise) during the tour. It’s not quite 35 years of course: half of the time we were all doing something else, that did not involve Kayak at all. But it’s the idea that counts, so, who cares.

To realize that some tracks on KAYAKoustic LIVE have been written half a lifetime ago (so even before Cindy was born) is something that’s only slowling sinking in. Are we that old? Yes, that’s right. Well, whatever, we don’t mind postponing the rollager and the senior’s home for a little while.

Ton

Edward Reekers

Monday, March 12, 2007

Phantom of the studio

Okay, so you’ve been a fan of this band for years and all of a sudden you get to be the new leadsinger! Well, halleluyah, how-bout-that, what-do-you-know, shiver me timbers, nodge nodge, wink wink, say no more, say no more..!

Not long after my first performance with Kayak, for the armed forces, we went into the studio to record an album. And not just any old studio : the brand new, state of the art, super-duper Wisseloord Studio’s! Equipped with the best recording gear and all the latest gadgets, so that could only be... a disaster !

From day one everything that possibly could go wrong, did go wrong! Max had the greatest difficulty in finding a snaredrum that would sound even a little bit hot. We must have tried over twenty different ones. The Dolby-system – the ink of the manual was still wet – would blow itself up spontaneously every three to four days. The tape on the 24 track recording machine would even start to run backwards!

Out of sillyness and pure frustration we had decorated the control room of the studio with all the centrefolds we could find. So the director of our recordcompany got quite a shock when he walked in with his teenage daughter he had taken on a tour to show her ‘how things were done in a recordingstudio’.

When our English producer, Dennis MacKay, told this hilarious story to another visitor the next day, accompanied by a very lively and truthfull impersonation of this director, he didn’t notice that about halfway through the story the door had opened behind him and none other than the same director was able to watch with great interest, a re-enactment of the whole incident by an Englishman who was roaring with laughter.

In the mean time the recordings went on. Well, sort of. We were, for instance, not able to record for a period of two weeks because there would be a little electric click on tape every time we recorded and no-one knew where it was coming from. The intire electricity network of Hilversum and its surrounding were checked meticulously. Eventually it turned out that the carpet in the controlroom was giving off static. Go figure.

Or the 24 trackmachine would run so irregularly that there would be a dip in pitch every three bars. It just went on and on.

And what was I to think about all this ? Was this normal ? Was it common practise in studio’s? Were all Kayak records made with such difficulty?
In the beginning everything is still very exciting, of course, but you get to a point, even as somewhat of a beginner, when you start to wonder.

Did the singing at least go well?
Well, uh...sometimes, now and again, every once in a while, it did. ‘Ruthless Queen’ was virtually a one-taker. But I think I began to sing ‘Daphne Laurel Tree’ at least four times and every single time something technical went wrong! It was enough to drive you mad!

Did the studio ever recover from this ?
More than that.
Wisseloord became one the most wanted recording facilities in the world.
Mick Jagger, Elton John, Steve Hackett, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Def Leppard and numerous Dutch artists recorded their material at Wisseloord for many years with great pleasure and succes.

And we? We were allowed to fled uh... fly to Los Angeles to record our next album. The fact that we finished Phantom of the night (in about six months!) is nothing less of a small miracle.

And the notion that Kayak never had to suffer for succes should hereby be erased.

Edward

Ton Scherpenzeel

Sunday, February 10, 2007

Making it abroad

The first part of Kayak’s career (1972-1981) was marked by ever returning reports in the Dutch media, that seemed to suggest the time had finally come for the band’s definite breakthrough ‘abroad’. Usually these messages referred to America, especially the US. We were informed that Holland finally became too small for a band like Kayak. Then, after a few months of distressing silence, some music magazine again brought the news of the same expected breakthrough; the earlier one apparently had not fully materialized — yet. Now, in hindsight, we know that some things in our career didn’t quite work out like everyone apparently thought they would, but does that also imply that these publications were all just complete rubbish? No. And yes.

I never really felt those reports were actually about us. OK, our name was mentioned, and we did have a rather radioactive manager, who favored the motto: ‘It doesn’t matter what they say about you, as long as they do’ and who prematurely and gladly announced many a doubtful press report, in order to make journalists publish about the band. This resulted in a kind of media attention that at least made the audience aware of a band they would — considering the kind of music we played — normally never have heard of, and which we’d now be more than happy to have. In reality we were a sort of autistic group of musicians, with no real plan: it all just happened to us. We had no real vision: we made music, and the rest we were more or less being talked into, without considering the consequences. Breaking through in America? Of course, why not. The promotional machine soon was going full speed ahead, with our manager up front, pressing all the buttons he could find. Merely the music wouldn’t do: there was work to be done, and preferrably something that had nothing to do with the music itself.

The first grand scale encounter with ‘abroad’ happened in 1974. We had flashy costumes especially made for us, singer Max Werner even looked like a second hand, blue haired christmas tree with a blinding jacket that had flashing lights built in. In short, we were as ready as we’d ever be! Record company EMI had organised a promotional concert in a theatre in the town of Zaandam, and invited record bosses from all over Europe to come and see us. Other acts from EMI, that night, were Heart (not the American band but a Dutch version with singer Patricia Paay) and I think a group called Dizzy Man’s Band. Our entry was unforgettable: we always used the music of synthesizer player Walter (now Wendy) Carlos as an overture to the show. The venue’s lights dimmed slowly, and we climbed unto the stage as mysteriously as we could. Alas, after ten seconds it became clear that our sound engineer for reasons still unknown had used an old turntable instead of a reliable tape recorder: do you know the sound of a good old fashioned vinyl record going down from 33 to 0? That’s what everyone heard while we were trying to build up the tension in our glittery suits. The night was ruined, of course.

But we didn’t give up. The next step wasn’t Belgium or Germany, no, a little further away this time just to be sure: America! A real American label, called Janus, headed by Alan Mason as the leading animator, had ‘discovered’ us. Janus later appeared to be a subdivision of a much bigger company, meant to serve as a mere tax deduction and doomed to go under as soon as there was too much profit. From that point of view, Kayak was the perfect choice.

Mr. Mason came to Holland, to meet those young, eager talents. To our utter surprise the man appeared to be a hippie version of the American record boss: hair down below his bottom and frightfully skinny. No wonder, because for all the time we spent together, we’ve never seen him eating a meal. At the Chinese restaurant (yes, a traditional Dutch treat by EMI!) he took no more than one salad leaf, but still afterwards loudly praised the chef for his work (‘The chef here did an A-ONE JOB!’). A weirdo, but an enthousiastic one, who firmly seemed to believe in us. So, Janus released Royal Bed Bouncer in de US, albeit with another album cover. Not so strange, considering the rather unclever Dutch one with some running goat in a deserted landscape, but later we found out it was just a built-in American habit to ALWAYS use another cover or version of your product, whatever the quality of the original- whether you liked it or not. With ‘Phantom of the Night’ that suddenly had to be a secretive sigarette smoker in some alley, and with Starlight Dancer (admittedly not a picture I’d hang on my own wall) they even managed to take the front of the previous album ‘The Last Encore’ (with the broken painting, no kidding — he painter had smashed his own artwork, which explains the crack from top to bottom) with another title. We did not have much influence on these decisions anyway, it is a far journey to LA and back. And what of course did we, silly Dutchmen, know about American taste?

In the meantime our own international experiences were limited to Belgium, the six Dutch NATO army camps in West Germany, a prematurely stopped tour in England with Jan Akkerman’s adaptation of Focus, and a four-day tour in France with Caravan (not counting the photosession in Madeira that I mentioned in an earlier blog). The fact that our American record label had even organised kayak-paddle matches to promote the album, was something that went beyond our imagination. ‘America’ to us was some kind of surrealistic event, and our daily lives were hardly influenced by it. These last ten years the internet and e-mail has more or less opened up the world: so it was really true they knew our music in America! A few years ago I received an email by a dentist in Chicago, who wrote to me that he often played Kayak in his waiting room. I certainly hope ‘Trust in the Machine’ wasn’t one of those songs, with its noisy operation scene in the middle section. But apparently, Kayak seemed to have been a rather popular band among students at the time.

The American reviews were, in general, pretty good, especially compared to the critical shit we were often confronted with in our home country, so my guess is, that there was some money involved. In 1978, suddenly we were named ‘Most Promising Foreign Band’ by leading music business magazine Record World. I can only wonder what that must has costed. The single ‘Want You to be Mine’ (in fact, the demo version because — now why am I not surprised? — Mason preferred it to the official one) even made it to number 55 in the Billboard Hot One Hundred. All we really ever got out of that was a vague headeache, but what the heck, it sure does look nice on your CV.

In the end we did not have to make the choice to move to America — unavoidable, if you really want to get anywhere in that enormous country, because at the ‘moment supreme’ (we were told a tour with Kansas was ‘in the making’) our lead singer Max Werner suddenly decided he didn’t want to be a singer after all. Well, those things happen. A couple of years of hard labour just to get that one opportunity, and then suddenly someone thinks: hmmm... maybe not so (to everyone’s surprise, hardly two years later Max pursued a solo career with an album that took him to number one in Germany as... you guessed it, a singer!). Looking back, maybe his decision could have been a blessing in disguise — this way we just couldn't fail: we simply never had to try. And as an international breakthrough depended (and still does) on so many factors that are beyond your or anyone’s control, that I would estimate our chance that we would have accomplished that mission at approximately 1 percent (tops). That means you really, really have to want it. The Golden Earring tried, and almost went bankrupt. Well, luckily we didn’t want it that much, so probably we were just saved of a lot of problems. Alas, two years later we found out that we a band doesn’t even need to go abroad to meet with financial disaster.

Anyway, the Janus label went out of business, as already predicted, but no problem: Phonogram USA would take over. Our top-5 hit with ‘Ruthless Queen’ in Holland renewed all hopeful expectations for an international success. But when ‘Periscope Life’, which was recorded in L.A. for that matter, and which deserves a blog in its own right, again did not recoup the investments made, our international ambitions effectively ended. You may know the rest of the story: in 1981 we temporarily split up, and after that, nothing substantial has happened beyond our borders as far as Kayak was concerned-, apart from just a few one-off concerts in Belgium or Spain, that bore more resemblence to a short holiday trip than to a serious tour.

The Dutch dikes have appeared to be a little too high for Kayak. Although, having said that, because of the Internet, borders have gone down, and now we find fans in every corner of the world. It remains a strange phenomenon, that the music you create finds its way all over the globe: there are a lot of people in the former Soviet Union that appear to have a Kayak CD. But where? In Omsk? Vladivostok? Deep in Kazakhstan? I still can't imagine. Ten percent of the visitors of the Kayak site live in the US... (maybe the angry patients of that dentist in Chicago, who knows). And with the lack of a tour outside Holland, we meet a lot of fans from all over the world (Japan, Norway, the US) that come to our country to see Kayak play. Well, if Mohammed doesn’t come to the mountain, the mountain has to come to Mohammed, according to a well known Chinese saying (this may sound awkward for native English speakers, but believe me, in Dutch it sounds acceptable). It also may be the other way round, I’m not sure.

In short, the story-in-a-nutshell about Kayak making it abroad is one of many in the music business: it doesn’t happen until it does. In our case, usually it doesn’t. But if we’ll ever make it in Dover, you’ll be the first to know.

Ton

PS. Later on, our connection with the Janus label appeared to hold a pleasant surprise: Mason had also contracted the British band Camel, and through him guitarist Andy Latimer found out about me. In 1983 we met and since then I have had the honour of working with him and Camel on a few tours and albums.

Ton Scherpenzeel

Sunday, January 7, 2007

Making pictures

Every now and then a musician has to make himself or herself available for a promotional photoshoot, in order to make the outside world aware of their very existence. I do not know many collegueas who really enjoy this sort of thing, except for the more vain types, maybe. It comes with the job, but that’s it, basically. In our career Kayak has been ‘shot’ by a lot of well and lesser known photographers. The names of Govert de Roos, Claude van Heye and Ronnie Hertz spring to mind. Especially the last one has left an unforgettable impression.

It was 1976, a time when our record company did not hesitate to send the whole band to faraway places such as the island of Madeira, just to have some nice pictures taken. Nowadays that would be impossible for bands like us. The trip included five Kayak musicians, the manager, two roadies, as well as Ronnie Hertz’s crew of three – photographer, assistant to the photographer, and the assistant to the assisent of the photographer – plus a fine hotel, good food: expenses were no issue. Unfortunately, to get to Madeira, one needs to take the plane, unless you can take three weeks off to go by boat. In those years I still did fly, but only when there was no other way around it, so my enthousiasm for this whole undertaking was rather limited. But, we went and took the plane, and so did I.

Our Ronnie had certain specificic photographical ideas, and did not hesitate to mercilessly use the group when he thought it necessary, supporting the theory that a photo could only be interesting when the portrayed victims were suffering. Well, it has to be said: in that last respect he certainly succeeded. And, admittedly, we did come home with a few remarkable photos in the end. But during the sessions we often wondered what we, simple musicians, were doing here, and why.

For starters, Ronnie had organized a day in a swimming pool. He thought it would be nice if the band would dive into the water, while he would make pictures sitting, comfortably dry, behind a glass screen under the surface. Did we fly all the way to Madeira for that? I had never been able to dive, which meant an uneven battle to begin with. But the worst thing was that the water and air temperature hardly seemed to rise above freezing point — so much for starters. Swimming had always been only an option for me when it was too hot to stay outside the water anyway. And though Madeira may be located south of Spain, and close to Africa, in March it appeared to be unpleasantly cold there. After three plunges I began to get seriously undercooled – I was 23 and still lacked even the least of a protecting fat layer – and chances were that Kayak would have to continue without a keyboard player the next day. Others would have stopped the session out of compassion, but not Ronnie Hertz: they poured a well meant grog down my throat, but to save the picture, it was decided that my place would be taken by my brother Peter, who had been travelling with us as a ‘roadie’, because we shared enough comparable physique to make him pass for me under water. In hindsight, all Kayak members could have easily been replaced by any other band, or even the Dutch government for that matter, because we were hardly recognizable in these circumstances. But worse, if Ronnie would call this ‘getting started’, I started to have nasty visions about what he would have in mind for us the rest of the week.

The second day he rented an open army jeep, taking us into the mountains for an even less dignified session, in which we had to race in the pouring rain on a muddy field straight to his position where he waited with the camera. It has to be said, Ronnie wasn’t sparing himself either, because if driver/bass player Bert Veldkamp wouldn’t have turned the steering wheel just in time some 180 degrees, it certainly would have become quite a spectaculair photo — if Ronnie would have had the time to click at all. More often than not we really had to surpress our urge to, just once, drive straight on to put an end to this ordeal and to the photographer as well. The weather was terrible, it rained cats and dogs and there was a cold, biting wind. In short, ideal circumstances to make a pretty picture of Kayak. After an hour of racing and slipping and sliding back and forth, we were allowed to get into our own clothes, only our fingers were sort of frozen and the rest of our bodies soaking wet. But Ronnie had his picture.

On the way back to the land of the living, our manager Frits suddenly spotted a chance for a unique shot. We had just encountered a sort of local police officer, who was posted next to our jeep, and now the band was supposed to stand in and around the car half naked, with our delicate parts just out of sight. When you look at the picture now, it is still hard to determine whether the left backlight doesn’t in fact belong to our drummer Pim. Anyway, besides being a ridiculous idea that could really only have come out of our manager’s twisted mind, this sort of thing was of course not allowed there, in Madeira. But our officer had the time of his life. I’m sure this story will be passed on by generations of his family. If his superiors had seen this picture, there’s no doubt in my mind that he would have been fired straight away. Frits may have enjoyed himself immensely, but I for sure didn’t. Why the rest of the band went along with it, I couldn’t comprehend. I took the passengers seat, and only my head can be seen. But what in heaven’s name did this have to do with music? Ahh, wrong, now I just didn’t understand what showbusiness was all about.

Midweeks the band was positioned in a speedboat, and there we went, up the Atlantic Ocean. Ronnie took pictures from another, much bigger boat, while we – no-one of us had ever done this – bumped at the waves and flew over at considerable speed. Bert Veldkamp, a nice chap whose simple CAR driving capabilties were even seriously doubted by most people, was again put behind the wheel at this risky exercition. Later on, we understood that lots of sharks swam around in this area. Nobody had informed us. And, unbelievable as it may seem, we didn’t even have life jackets with us. Did someone maybe try to get rid of us? Was that the intention?

After a few less exciting trips we went to another island for the last day. Ronnie really needed a sand beach for this occasion, something that couldn’t be found on Madeira. Great, another flight, not my hobby as everyone knows by now. Our picture man had the following idea: a small plane would dive down behind us, sort of ‘chasing’ the band that had to run on the beach, as if we were all trying to escape from some crazy pilot. Well, forget the AS IF: the whole thing appeared to be a matter of life or death. The man in the cockpit obviously had a field day, flying lower and lower every time he let his machine make a dive — something that made Ronnie only very happy, as he saw his pictures getting more ‘real’ by the minute. The frightened expression in our eyes was no acting: my estimation was that between our sorry heads and the diving piper cup sometimes there was only a distance of a few meters, if even that. Yes, it takes a lot of dedication indeed if you want to promote your music!

When we went back the next day to safe Holland, I once and for all knew what muscle pain meant. Because of the endless running on the beach the day before, most of us hardly managed to get to their airplane seat. It was the first (and last) time I was happy to find myself seated there. But we were in for more, because the flight back wasn’t entirely free of problems. Because of the fact that the take-off strip of Funchal Airport is rather short, the departing plane must not be too heavy. Too much weight would make the machine end up in sea, that just about starts where the strip is ending, only some onde hundred uncomfortable meters lower. Great info, when your knees are shaking already. In order to keep the weight as low as possible, we had to refuel in the south of Spain, in Malaga, to be precise. To my great relief, we did manage to leave Madeira without crashing, but during the flight I felt so miserable, that I really wanted to get out during that coming stop, if possible. One way or another our manager convinced the crew to open the backdoor to let us two out, letting me get some fresh air — the only passengers who were allowed to do so. While we were waiting outside, standing underneath the plane, about twenty meters to the left the refueling had started. To kill the time, Frits off-handedly lighted a cigarette. After two puffs the pilot came running at us, waving his arms and calling out: no cigarette! Were we out of our minds? There's kerosine here!!! As a matter of fact, everything could have blown up. And surely Ronnie would not have been able to make a picture.

Luckily not all photo sessions are like this. Most of them you do and forget, and remain merely an annoying but necessary part of the day. But it’ll never be a hobby of mine.

Ton

Pim Koopman

Sunday, December 5, 2006

‘Veer’

Holland, the latter half of the 60’s.
Robbie van Leeuwen, the leader of one of the ‘big’ groups from the Hague, The Motions, unexpectedly quits his own band. At the time, nobody knows why.

A few months later a song called ‘Send me a Postcard’ by Shocking Blue, Robbie’s new band, is released. A very good record indeed, with a surprise element: a girl-singer.
As soon as the new band is presented to the public, it becomes clear as day that this isn’t just any girl-singer (and a good one as well) but one that easily qualifies as the ‘Stunner of the Decade’. Suddenly nobody cares anymore as to why Robbie left ‘The Motions’.

If this is premeditated, it’s sheer genius.
Male adolescents all over the country suddenly feel awkward in the groin area and collectively fall in love with Her, whereas the female members in this agegroup desperately try to save what’s left of their self-confidence by making feeble attempts to look exactly like this Ideal Woman. Make-up and black hair-dye are sold by the shipload.

This Goddess’ name is Mariska Veres. In all press releases it is specifically stated that she’s the daughter of Hungarian violin player Lajos Veres, but I never quite understood what purpose was served with that particular piece of information. I don’t think anyone outside The Hague has the foggiest idea who he is.

Mariska’s appearance, stunning as it is, still proves no absolute guarantee for success. Although ‘Send me a Postcard’ does what any first single is supposed to do, the surprising follow-up, the rather heavy ‘Long and Lonesome Road’ fails to make any commercial impact, probably for being years ahead of its time.

A little odd, I think. It will always be my favourite Shocking Blue single.

Not long after that ‘Venus’ is released.
Within a few months this song makes it to number one all over the world, even reaching the top spot in the Billboard Hot 100 in the USA.

And as so often happens, most of the songs they record after ‘Venus’ are based on a suspected ‘instant success formula’ (under heavy pressure from the record company, I fear) but none of them are in the same league as ‘Venus’. Quite nice songs, no doubt about that, but certainly lacking the magic and originality of ‘Venus’.

The fading success eventually heralds the end of the band. Shocking Blue vanishes into thin air, without a sound.

Robbie doesn’t give up and once again manages to make a name for himself with yet another -but unsuccessful- band, Galaxy Lin. A few years later he writes and produces the beautiful song ‘Starship 109’ for a  studio-project called ‘Mistral’, which gives him yet another top ten hit in 1978. But there’s no trace of Mariska.

She seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth.

1986.
‘Pim, would you be interested in producing a record with Shocking Blue?’, the manager asks me.
‘You mean with Robbie van Leeuwen and Mariska Veres?’ The answer, of course, is ‘yes’.

A rather silly question.

Within days a meeting is arranged between Robbie and me (we’d never met before) in a bar in Hilversum, where some sort of agreement is quickly reached: I’ll be the producer of Shocking Blue’s intended come-back single ‘The Jury and the Judge’.
We also agree that Mariska will come and visit me soon, to make sure she and I are getting on.

That particular day I am as excited as a puppy dog that’s allowed outside for the very first time.

That’s only natural, isn’t it? I mean, SHE’s the woman that shook our world, right? SHE’s the woman that had the Number One in America, didn’t she? SHE’s the Pride of the Nation, isn’t she?

As soon as the patio-door opens, I’m in for another shock… Yes, this is Mariska alright, but… she’s at least ten inches shorter than I expected... and… oh dear… a lot... er… fatter.
But… those eyes! And apart from that, during the few hours she spends at my place, chittering away in a broad ‘The Hague’ brogue, I find she is a very sweet woman, maybe slightly disappointed in life, but by no means bitter.

She and I agree we’re going to do this record.

Robbie van Leeuwen’s strengths certainly did not include making friends during his career, as I discover when I’m trying to surprise my favourite sound-engineer, who recorded many of Shocking Blue’s songs in the past:

‘How would you like to….once again…. record….. with me…TATATAAA!! …SHOCKING BLUE???’

(My ingenuousness must have sounded like I was attempting to spread the Gospel.)

‘WITH Robbie van Leeuwen’? His counterquestion sounds icy.

‘Er… yes, of course. Why ask?’

‘Well, in that case I’m very sorry. Thanks, but no, thanks. No, honestly. Years ago I decided I didn’t want anything to do with that man anymore, and I’m going to stick to that. Sorry again.’

He then describes what I would call a producer’s nightmare, a situation he had been unfortunate enough to witness many a time, and offers me some good advice: ‘As soon as Mariska’s behind the microphone, don’t do any test-runs, record her straight away. That’s because the first take she delivers is usually very good. Keep that take, and immediately record a second one to be on the safe side. That one will probably be even better.

Unfortunately, this is where Robbie jumps in. He’ll start shouting at her, she completely loses it, and you’ll end up recording a lead vocal, word for word, all night long, that was in fact perfect after just ten minutes.’
I thank him for the warning and start looking for another sound-engineer.

We’re recording the leadvocal. Mariska sings the first take: it’s fantastic, powerful, straight forward, no frills, no compromises. I believe she can do even better than this, though. I ask her to do another take. Take two IS better still, and as I’m quietly enjoying this ‘powerplant-disguised-as-a-woman’, much to my horror, I hear from right next to me:

“HEY, VEER!!!!
GODDAMMIT!!!!
WHY DON’T YOU RELAX FOR A CHANGE, YOU STUPID COW!!!
YOU NEVER SING THIS BAD WHEN YOU’RE AT MY PLACE, DO YOU???
TRY AND ACT NORMAL!!!”

Exactly as predicted, right on cue, Robbie starts shouting hysterically at ‘Veer’, as Mariska is apparantly known. And although one might expect her to be able to deal with this kind of behaviour after so many years, she clams up completely.
I don’t want this, I don’t need this. And while Robbie tries to convince me, at the top of his voice, that this vocal track is at best ‘attrocious’ and ‘fuckin’ horrible’, in the spur of the moment I decide to hit the emergency brake:
‘Hey, van Leeuwen, why don’t you leave the control room for a while. Go and sit in the kitchen or something and leave the vocals to Mariska and me, alright? This is not going to work.’

With hindsight, I can only suspect nobody ever spoke to him like that before, because he leaves the room without a murmur, tail between his legs. Just ten minutes later he’s allowed back in again, as the vocal track only needed minor repairs, most of it was good in the first place.

Robbie comes in, listens to the track, smiles happily and says: yeah, it’s great now, what’s the secret?’

‘No secret. We re-recorded just two lines, and I replaced the last word of another one, that’s all.’

The record, although it turned out rather nice, was played just a few times on Radio 2, and Shocking Blue’s intended come-back was stopped in its track straight away.

As it happened, the failure of ‘The Jury and the Judge’ coincided with Bananarama’s number one in America, a song called… ‘Venus’. Robbie wasn’t even aware of it, he didn’t know who or what Bananarama was, and was in such a foul mood over the Shocking Blue debacle, that he couldn’t care less.

I never heard from him again.

The only time I met Mariska after that, was when we were both in a TV show with stars of the 70’s, a couple of years ago. That encounter was warm and hearty, and I sensed some relief when she told me she’d completely broken up with Robbie van Leeuwen.

When I jokingly referred to Robbie’s abusive fits in the studio, she said: yes, I didn’t think that was very nice of him, to treat me like that for so many years, don’t you agree it wasn’t very nice?

Not nice…
Dictionaries are bulging with more adequate terms to describe Robbie’s disrespectful behaviour towards her.

The sad news of Mariska Veres passing away hit me much harder than I would have thought. Not because we were close friends, or that I knew her all that wel, because that’s certainly not the case.

Maybe it’s because of the few, but precious memories I cherish, and possibly a touch of pride, because I’ve had the privilege and honour – if only for a few days – of working with her, this Dutch Icon.

‘Veer’ is gone.
Holland should be missing her.

Pim

Ton Scherpenzeel

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Bizarre

A little while ago I read a rather accurate observation about the music business. It is a ruthless world, full of cheaters, charlatans, criminals, idiots, parasites, big mouths and opportunists. But unfortunately, there’s also a downside to it.

In this business, one is usually either a musician, or a businessman. A succesful combination of both is rare. Almost every band or artist has got someone who handles his or her affairs, the so-called manager. Often enough these are nice, normal, hard working people who do not have the direct intention to ruin their artistic clientele, something that, though still occuring often enough, is harder to do: for the beginner in music land there’s a lot of information available on the internet, and if you’re a member of a trade union you can even obtain ready made contracts, and more info on request. Also I have noticed that many younger musicians these days have a much more business-like approach than their older, more idealistic and somewhat naive colleagues, who had to learn it it all the hard way. A rock band that has not been cheated on at least once is hard to find.

Kayak were also in that category of enthousiasts dummies. We were all in our late teens, early twenties, happy to have left school, with a record deal in our pockets (well, the manager’s pocket I should say, because we never saw the document again) and were on the verge of salvaging Holland — if not the rest of the world — through our music. But, of course, without a well designed, concrete carreer plan. Marketing was an unknown phenomenon to us, and no one in the band even had the foggiest idea of what it would take to find an audience for our music. As there was no internet then (1972), a record company was what seemed to be the only way to make it. When a band was ‘allowed’ (!) to make an album, there were no limitations as to what could be achieved, as long as a number of things were done right. And that did not only mean the acceptance of your music by an audience or getting airplay, but also, if not most importantly, getting your business organized. Thas was needed to prevent that, after years of hard labour, one had to find out that other people made more money out of your work than you did, or that your money had already been spent without you knowing. Or, even worse, that you had to explain to the taxman that you did not want to pay tax over money you never even got in the first place. Double fucked, as they say.

In that field, things didn’t really go as desired as far as we were concerned. We had a manager with some brilliant qualities, but who later on displayed some less likeable tendencies. His strongest point was, no doubt, asking and getting attention. His way of negotiating contracts and promoting the band was, in those days, and especially in Holland, something that no one had ever done before. It did not only evoke admiration, but also irritation and jealousy, which is a normal reaction in showbusiness when you succeed where others failed. An example: we were hardly surprised, when he started negotiations on Monday, dressed up as a gypsy, and returned the next day as the perfect imitation of an English gentleman. The next day, he was seen with his hair dyed loud orange, and a question mark shaved on the back of his head, and this happened well before punk rock. At another time he arrived at the record company’s office on horseback, because he thought that they did not take him or the band seriously enough in the negotiations. Whether they did so, after this action, remains doubtful, but in any case, he left a load of shit behind him there. Many a time I was the unwilling witness of his dropping his pants in — preferably — a posh restaurant, after he had just ordered a very expensive wine, to get the conversation going and the attention focused on himself. It always worked. In Rome, where we once did a recording for a tv pop show, our record company hosts were totally flabbergasted when he performed the same trick. The Italians apparently didn’t know whether to laugh or walk away — things like that do not seem to be happing in restaurants over there. But: he was the talk of the day, and that’s what he was after.

Whatever method he used, one could be sure that he would go to all lengths to get the best deal. And he did, because he knew
how to negotiate. Charming, and unpredictable. I’m sure we had the best possible record contract for the time. Just too bad, that we as a band have not really profited from that: it was all just a game for him. He spent the money sooner than it had come in. The band members were absolute no-no’s as far as business was concerned: as long as they could play and there seemed to be money coming in, they couldn’t really be bothered. Still, after a few years we all began to find it a little odd that the early ‘investments’ still weren’t recouped, and that we had to get by on an average of 900 to 1000 guilders a month, in spite of the rather substantial financial advances that were mentioned in the contracts. Only the fact that several band members had partners with a ‘normal’ job, or that we as a band were constantly on the road so we weren’t really confronted with the lack of income, made it more easily acceptable. But, even we started to think that something had to be not quite right here.

When the predicted big international breakthrough wasn’t happening, the problems started. Being a born manipulator, he managed to hide this for a long time. He was a master in putting the members of the band up against each other, instead of them making a front against him. His warning, that the financial consequences for us could be severe, if we demanded clearity in the administration, had the effect that we believed it would be for the better to keep things as they were, hoping for better days. The fact that he could pull that trick on us, was typical for our relation. But, it became more and more obvious that he simply filled one hole with another, especially when we found tickets of other acts he ‘handled’ in our administration. Well, administration is hardly the appropriate word: I can still see the shoe boxes in the trunk of his car with papers and documents, being blowed away on a windy parking space near the motorway.

After the incredible financial chaos that was left after Kayak split up in 1981, he was seen in more dubious circles, and I have hardly ever met him after that time. Once I saw him in the newspaper where he was photographed as self-established ‘secretary’ of rebel leader Ronnie Brunswijk in the jungle in Surinam, and on tv in a very iffy program of Ursul de Geer in which he grinningly showed a gun inside his jacket, all nicely underscored by the inevitable soundtrack of ‘Ruthless Queen’. Whether the gun was a real one or fake, I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it had been a real one: he had not only been making best friends. And I for one did not care to see him either. Although we have had a unique time together, there was always a shadow hanging over all these very funny anecdotes about his life: great, but we payed for it all.

A few years ago he died. Many say that he lived a hundred years, but only because his counted double. There is a Kayak song about him  —Edward announced it once, saying it was a tribute, but I’d have to nuanciate that — called ‘You're So Bizarre’. I wrote that song long before the real trouble began. It is about the misunderstood genius, that was without any doubt inside him, and that had not showed its downside yet. I hardly need to explain those lyrics would have been slightly different, a few years later. After all this time I admit, I have never really understood Frits. But then again: he was a lousy piano player.

Ton

Ton Scherpenzeel

Sunday, October 1, 2006

Fans

There are many kinds of fans. Some watch attentively at a distance, others fasten upon their favorite artist (or band, in our case), spend a considerate amount of their monthly income on their behalf, or are willing to travel to every corner of the country (or abroad, if need be) and do whatever it takes just to see their "idols" (just joking) perform. And some "fans" take more extreme measures to get their "idols'" attention.

Admittedly, most of the times it is flattering and nice, if not indispensable for the artist's ego, to find that there are people appreciating your music. But in some cases, this appreciation goes much further than we could ever think of. I, for one, could not imagine myself going to virually EVERY gig of a certain band, no matter how good they were. But of course, everyone is free to do so. Other people may find it beyond comprehension to lock yourself up for a week, just to be able to write a song. Sometimes the artist may get the impression that he exists, just to please his fans, finding himself almost chocked to death by so much well-meant but ultimately self-directed attention. Fortunately, we are blessed with quite a few loyal fans, who are not pushy, don't claim anything, but on the contrary are willing to help out when asked, and leave the band in peace when that's necessairy. In short: these fans are the only thing around Kayak that's about perfect. Still, that wasn't always so in the past. And I know of certain colleagues who even barely survived their "admirers".

I can remember a peculiar situation, that involved the female president of our fanclub (we're talking about the seventies now). She frequently hung around or even entered our dressing room before the gig, and did not hesitate to openly criticize us for the upcoming set list if that didn't appeal to her ("Oh no, not Alibi again!"). At one point she felt the urgent need to change clothes, and she kindly but strongly requested Pim to leave the dressing room so that she would be able to put on a new sweater. That's when we thought that she was going a bit too far, and of course having made that clear we turned out to be "arrogant assholes" in her opinion, and she put down her presidency of the fanclub. Something nobody really regretted.

Another president thought it was only normal that she would be allowed to come to each concert without paying. When we let her know that this was not her privilege, as nobody had the urge to invite her anyway, she also decided to quit. These are, of course, only harmless examples.

A colleague of mine, a guitar player, whose band I was in for a couple of years, had more serious problems. He was, to put it mildly, stalked by an "admirer", who was absolutely convinced of the fact that she was the only one for him. Every day she called him dozens of time (a secret number was found out within a few days) and waited- unasked for- at his house when he returned from a concert, and so on. She more or less controlled his whole life. One sunday morning I drove to his house for rehearsals. As I arrived there I saw a police van parked on the driveway. The story was, that in the morning this lady had made a bicycle journey from a psychiatric hospital, about 30 km far, just to visit him. He got so furious, that he threw her and her bike in the ditch that surrounded his house. While she crawled out of the water, she cried out to him: "You see, this is just another proof that you love me."

Once I played in a band with a female lead singer, who in recent years could be seen on national tv as member of the jury in a so called "talent" scouting program. Literally every show we played, the same man was standing right before her, his full attention solely fixated at her- the only thing that moved (as far as we could see) were his arms that every now and then picked up the camera around his neck to make a photograph. I always admired our singer for completely ignoring the guy, but having to sing that way couldn't have been much fun. The fact that at one point he was even removed from the fanclub, must mean something about his state of mind.

All very funny, in hindsight of course. What I personally regret, although it is quite understandable, is the fact that certain fans so identify with you and your music as they have come to learn it, that every change is conceived as a damage of their own ideal- they know exactly how the band should be sounding, even who should be playing on stage. Inevitable, but a shame still. A good example of this happened recently after a gig on a festival in Alphen, a small town in Holland. We had just left the stage, having been programmed between singer Floortje (coincidentally runner-up of the forementioned talent scouting show) and some rapper whose name I have already forgotten, when a fan asked my attention. He told me, within ten seconds after our final notes (the applause was still not over yet), that he was very "disappointed" by what he had just seen and heard. I thought it was already quite remarkable that he had managed to get behind the stage even before we did, and could still have a well balanced opinion about our show, but OK. He apparently found his own opinion of such importance, that he decided he wanted to bother us with it, while we were still sweating out our performance. The group, that "used to surround me in the early days", he said, was "much better", something "that I no doubt knew myself." I did not know that. On the contrary, I was under the impression that we had the best Kayak line up ever, that unfortunately had to row against the current. This was not Kayak, he insisted, and he almost seemed to be personally insulted by that observation. I forgot to be clever, and did not ask him if he still had the same wife, lived under the same roof and wore the same clothes as 35 years ago, but did manage to tell him I also didn't like him as much as I used to (I didn't know him of course). I don't think he understood my remark, because he replied that I just could "not take any criticism." Well, if that would have been the case, Kayak would probably have stopped way back in 1974.

In short: fans come in all sorts and sizes. At the end of the day, that's how it should be.

Ton

Pim Koopman

Friday, September 8, 2006

Within my circle of friends and acquaintances everyone was pleased and excited when – towards the end of 1999 – I proudly started trumpeting around that Kayak had risen from the ashes, we were recording a new album and even intending to go on tour again.

And they weren’t the only ones that were excited: I still recall Kayak’s reunion concert on May 22, 2000 when we were practically jumped upon by a cameracrew (SBS 6, I believe) not even allowing us a minute to get changed. So there we were on camera, half naked, visibly steaming, just off the stage. When ‘Close to the Fire’ was released, a special 'press-day' was called for. This enabled us to tell our story umpteen times in just one day and stay in the same location. Any paper or magazine of some importance was welcome, every reporter was allowed one hour to interrogate us. Quite a few of them showed up, really.

We were hot news.

And Kayak’s still hot news.

But... we’re also OLD news.

I must have been quite naive thinking we could once again win the hearts of music lovers in Holland, and that proof to this fact was soon to be found in regular airplay of our new material and corresponding positions on all sorts of charts. We would once again be a musical force to be reckoned with.

Of course we would, wouldn’t we? As musicians we had only become better, which in our line of music has to be considered an advantage.

It soon became clear reality had caught up on us. Sure enough we made a few live appearances on radio, and we were even allowed to ‘jazz up’ a couple of TV shows, but that was about it. Airplay of our new material has since then been close to the point they call Absolute Zero.

The moribund Dutch TV-program ‘Middageditie’ revealed the probable reason behind this. They filmed us in Rotterdam, during rehearsals. Despite our patient and friendly cooperation, all interviews and recorded music were ultimately compressed into a piss-poor item that solely aired their view on us as ‘old farts desperately trying again’. The only thing they thought worth telling the nation was their claim we were all ‘over fift’'. Not true to begin with (well, not true back THEN, anyway), but even if it was, so bloody what?

Well, so bloody this.

It’s not just the people behind this program that could barely stomach the fact that we were able to hoist ourselves onto a stage without the aid of a platoon of geriatric nurses and successfully finish a concert on our rock’n’rollators without dropping dead on the spot. Making music when you’re over a certain age is for some reason considered totally insufferable, especially by those whose very existence relies entirely on other people’s musical talents.

Being an artist is an unhealthy occupation.

I dare state this without any reserve, you only need to look at the relatively long list of the Untimely Deceased.

Although I was never aware of the enormous possibilities to bend this to our own advantage.

If you haven’t succeeded, as a young and successful artist, to make enough money for later in life, for instance because you were unfortunate enough to happen upon a certain type of manager, you’re in trouble. In Holland, an artist is expected, once the compulsary retirement age of 23 is reached, to spend the rest of his/her life, both invisible and inaudible, behind the scenes. Appearances on TV in panels, smiling stupidly at the camera and participation in dumbed-down popquizzes are just about tolerated, as long as you shut up otherwise and no attempt is made to produce any music. Piss off, effectively.

This leaves you with the choice to put an end to your existence in a more or less mediagenic manner. In case this event won’t occur spontaneously, or if it simply seems to take too long (in spite of doing everything to speed things up, spending nearly all your hard-earned money feeding several addictions, so as not to frustrate the process of the approaching deterioration), you could lend fate a helping hand by jumping off a tall building.

This remedy is your best bet to make airplay of your latest song soar and break all records known to man. Every radio and TV station will bend over backwards to commemorate you, the Freshly Dead Celebrity. One day before, the same DJ wouldn’t play your record if it saved his life, but necrophonia knows no law, let’s put it that way.
(Don’t ever make the mistake of doing something like this halfheartedly. Failure, such as a survived stroke, or taking a hopelessly inadequate near-overdose, no matter how lethal you meant it to be, will invariably give you bad press, and you’ll be considered a loser for the rest of your life and far beyond.)
Remember, you’ll need to be RELIABLY DEAD!

Unfortunately, within Kayak nobody has so far felt the urge to be a good sport and serve the Just Cause.

The free rock codicils are still left untouched, and to this day nobody even volunteered for the exciting ‘no-rope bungee jump’.

The choice is simple: either you die in an attractive way, or learn to live with the fact you’re unfit to make any rightful claim to media attention.
“The days that good music was a good enough reason for being on the radio are past, Mr. Koopman”.

There is no gloomier prospect than the inevitable. Nothing we can do about our age, or for being banned from the radio for that reason only, even if we created the best music of our career... (as far as I’m concerned, that’s exactly what happened with ‘Nostradamus’).

“Tough luck, fellas!”

Sometimes I don’t feel like fighting this unequal and wrong fight anymore. But as soon as I’m behind my drums, listening to Edward, Robbie and Cindy sing... I get goosebumps all over. I’m happy to be playing with those fine musicians in Kayak, and I couldn’t care less about some talentless morons controlling the radio. I’d just like to tell them all to get lost.

To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Kayak were to survive the public radiostations, looking at the political developments in Holland at this moment.

Let’s hope they won’t jump off the tall radiomast here in Hilversum, they would draw far too much attention.

Pim

Edward Reekers

Friday, August 25, 2006

August 24: D-day. We’ve all been working towards that day, each in his/her own way. From the first planning, through the (vocal)rehearsals at my place and the week of rehearsals in Harderwijk to the first show of the new tour in Harlingen.

At first that date seems to be a long way off – yes, also for us – but all of a sudden you find yourself on your way to Harlingen with a healthy dose of tension in your body but above all a lot of excitement.

And then the storm struck ! Water came pouring down in gushes, lightning pierced the ink-black sky and the thunder made you think that somewhere an extremely large P.A. system wasn’t connected properly.

When I arrived in Harlingen the worst was already over. But the guys in our crew were soaked, doing their best to make up for the time they had lost because of the horrid weather. And, as fate would have it, things didn’t quite go as one might have hoped: speaker malfunctions, a second layer of canvas to be put over the stage to stop leakage and, and, and... It wasn’t untill after the show that they found a minute to swallow some fast food...

Would the weather hold ? That was the only thing that seemed important. Meanwhile they continued building up and we had to do ‘something’ of a soundcheck. Due to a misunderstanding we learned only now that the opening act had cancelled a couple of days ago. But the crowd was gathering in and around ‘t Skûtsje so we decided : let’s g !

The first set is (semi)acoustic with wonderful guitarplaying by Joost and Rob, pleasant (double)bassplaying by Jan, for-his-standards-reasonably-restrained-drumming by Pim and the inimitable keyboardplaying by Ton. Wonderful to be doing this! Fantastic to be playing songs from the time I was a Kayakfan myself, like ‘You’re so bizarre’ and ‘Land on the water’. And the fact that the stage went dark a couple of times because of a malfunction in the lightingboard was only a slight inconvenience. Cindy sang like a nightingale, as usual and Rob was giving it his vocal all, like only he can.

We started off the second, electric set with ‘Royal bed bouncer’, sang by Rob. And the band was rocking...

What a difference to ‘Nostradamus’! From the theatre to an outside stage. From the strictly directed spectacle to oldfashioned rock ’n roll. From bombastic to intimate, from décors to canvas, from costumes to jeans. Quite a change-over, absolutely, but just as wonderful to perform!

It was quite a change-over for me personally too. It’s been a while since I was on stage as the lead singer of a band, let alone as the leadsinger of Kayak. As it might have felt a little awkward at first, it also felt very familiar in a certain way. And with such a band behind you, there’s very little reason to complain when you’re a singer. The atmosphere within the band is so tremendously good and inspiring : it’s really a feast to make music together!

Add that to the beamed looks of my wife and children in the audience and of course the familiar faces of our loyal fans and it will be clear that, as far as I’m concerned, this first show of the tour was very special.

Didn’t anything go wrong ? O yes it did! A strange note here and there, some entangled lyric fragments, a forgotten line or lick...

And: ah yes ! My cajon! In all the rush to get ready the amplification of my cajon was sort of forgotten. But we’ll get it right next time. I can hardly wait...

Edward

Ton Scherpenzeel

Friday, August 18, 2006

Last week – as many people who visit the Kayak site regularly will probably have suspected – we have been rehearsing for the upcoming semi-acoustical tour. It will be a very special undertaking, that's for sure. The difference between our last tour, the rock opera Nostradamus- The Fate of Man and this one could not be bigger. In fact it is everything that Nostra wasn't: back to the basics, the songs, no story, no dance, no designs, no costumes: just a band in search for that, which formed the basic of our existence: playing the music itself.

The rehearsals took place in a town called Harderwijk, Park 3 (Estrado): to this nice venue, that we also used for the rehearsals of Nostradamus, we will return on september 30th to do a concert. Now, after five days of pretty hard labour, the songs slowly begin to "sink in". Still everyone in this business knows: a rehearsal is one thing, but a live concert is something completely different. That's when it's got to be done, and in that respect one gig easily counts for five days of practicing.

The original plan was to do some new songs as well. That will have to wait. Sorry, but we'll just keep them in the pocket for a while. Considering the limited time for preparation ( a chronical but unavoidable situation within this band) we judged it better to concentrate on older material, among which a rather substantial number of songs that we haven't even done live before. Also, for many of the audience a lot of songs will sound new anyway. We had to make a choice from a list of about 120 or more songs we have recorded (I've lost count) throughout the years. With the help of some enthousiastical fans we chose a set list, but to be honest, it's really quite random and the list could have looked different. The trouble for us is that we are not sure about how these songs will come across in a semi-acoustical setting. Probably they will surprise us as much as they will surprise the audience. We'll find out.

The idea, to take an accompanying video with us into the theatres, has been skipped for now (two or three theatres just is not enough to do it the way we wanted), and we'll combine a semi-acoustical set with an electrical one: we'll start small, to build up for a energetic climax near the end. This acoustical thing should also not be taken too litterairy: just realize that whenever there's a microphone plugged in, the whole thing isn't truly acoustical anymore. During a discussion about this Rob Vunderink, always one for a comical note, said that he had never seen so many wires and cables as during these so-called unplugged concerts. And, there's a practical side too: almost nowhere there's a real (grand) piano available for me to play on, so I'll just play the piano on a keyboard. But we do use some special instruments like recorder, accordeon, cajon, double bass, some percussion and even (Edward Reekers on) kazoo. Well, what the heck. We're just trying to create a show as variable as possible, with much emphasis on the vocals of Edward, Cindy and Rob. What a trio. And what luxury to be able to work with these vocal masters. Pim is re-inventing himself as a drummer (so he CAN in fact play softly, it appears!!) and of course we have basguitarist Jan and guitarist Joost, two formidable musicians.

This week we worked as a group much more than I can remember: everyone contributed to the show instead of just playing or singing whatever I had thought out for them. I must say that, throughout the years, I have also become much more open about this: in the beginning of Kayak I didn't even consider to transpose the song, no matter if it was clearly out of the vocalist's range. Now a great deal of the songs are played in another key than the original one.

You may have noticed that it isn't really a grand scale tour. First of all, we were late with our plans to do a theatre show like this (one needs to have these plans ready at least one year ahead to get it started), also because of the unexpected end of our collobaration with Bert Heerink, (whom we had really wanted to be Nostradamus with us for some time), to finish that project in a satisfying way. But then again, we consider this tour as an interesting bridge to next year's plans, that are slowly taking shape. Let's not forget, everyone also needs to be able to do other things beside Kayak. On top of that, I have to admit that Nostradamus has taken its toll on everyone, and it was necesairy to use this year for finding new ideas and energy. After all, we have, as a band, been exceptionally productive since 2000, and I sometimes wonder if all fans fully realize that.

Anyway, maybe we'll see eachother at one of the concerts; in addition to that, I have to say that the past years we have not been afraid for experiments; we hope that this time again the audience will go along with us. A little mistake here and there, some musical misunderstanding, the occasional sheet music dropping from a stand- it's all part of the game, these first few weeks. It may not all be perfect yet- but it will certainly not be boring!

Ton